The only thing on which the Penguins and Flyers could agree was that Laraque was assessed a major penalty for hitting from behind and a game misconduct. Get past that, and everything became a matter of partisan perspective.

When Flyers coach John Stevens looked at the sequence, for example, he saw “a vicious incident” and “a very, very dangerous play.”

When Laraque reflected on it, he saw an incident in which he pushed Downie, not cross-checked him, and did so with absolutely no malice, let alone intent to injure.

“If I want to hit somebody from behind,” Laraque said, “he’s not going to get up.”

Reports had the Flyers offering center Jeff Carter, a prospect and a first-round pick for Sundin, who is the Leafs’ all-time leading scorer with 961 points in 955 career games.

“I can say for a fact that we have had no discussions with the Maple Leafs regarding Mats Sundin,” Holmgren said before the Flyers’ games against the Devils Tuesday night. “We’ll look at some things, but a lot depends on where we’re at (in the standings).”

The Flyers are believed to be at the top of Forsberg’s list and if Paul Holmgren can devise a suitable contract offer, Forsberg could be wearing orange and black as early as Valentine’s Day, when the Tampa Bay Lightning visit the Flyers at the Wachovia Center.

With a few tweaks, the Flyers can create between $2.5 million and $3 million in cap space. If they offer Forsberg $1 million to play the final 26 games (52 days) of the regular season, his prorated salary of $3.54 million would count against the cap.

If they offer him $750,000 to play the remainder of the season, $2.65 million would count against the cap.

Judging from Forsberg’s recent comments, he’ll want a contract that includes next season and perhaps another, taking him through the 2009-10 season. If that is the case, the aforementioned salary figures (between $2.6 million and $3.5 million) would likely count against the Flyers’ cap….

Which brings us back to our original question: Should the Flyers do it?

You probably don’t know Haney, and she definitely doesn’t know much about hockey. The stay-athome mom from Clarence couldn’t remember Martin Biron’s name, referring to the goaltender as “that guy who used to be with us but is now in Philly” during an interview last week.

So how did she get tangled up in questions about Briere?

Sources said the Buffalo Sabres asked the NHL to look into whether Briere started negotiations with the Philadelphia Flyers before July 1, when he became an unrestricted free agent.

The 76ers are so hard up for publicity this year—the Phillies are currently on the front of Philly.com—they’ve resorted to latching on to the Flyers, who at least have a winning record. And what’s the newest publicity scheme?

Why, 76ers center Samuel Dalembert will attend his first NHL game!...

Dalembert was born in Haiti, but he grew up in Montreal and recently became a Canadian citizen. How “Have you ever attended an NHL game?” is not the first question on the Canadian citizenship test I will never understand.

OK, so Rostislav Olesz takes a late hit from Steve Downie, but since the Panthers didn’t do much complaining about it—and didn’t do anything about it—I won’t pile on. But, this could be bad. Olesz bounced up off the ice in a lot of pain.

JM says he re-injured his surgically repaired wrist/hand area, although I’m not so sure. That was Rusty’s right hand and it looked to me like he came up favoring his left. But we’ll see. Either way, doesn’t look good.